Archive for July, 2007

MyLife Organized Review

Published on July 12, 2007 in Time Management Tools. 0 Comments

In this series of articles we’ll be taking a look at a number of time management / personal organizer applications. The second application we’re looking at is MyLife Organized. Previously we looked at EssentialPIM.

The MyLife Organized Philosophy

The following is from the MLO help file regarding the MLO philosophy:

Every day many of us spend the time on urgent but low priority tasks while the most important tasks get put off until another day. Unfortunately, “another day” never seems to arrive. If you keep putting things off, you’ll eventually wake up one day and realize life has passed you by.

MyLife software helps you to think and act differently - and doing things differently is the first step in digging yourself out of the procrastination rut. The main idea of MyLife is to help you to plan and organize your time in such a way that you accomplish your most important goals as quickly as possible. Organize your goals/projects/tasks into a tree and MyLife will generate a simple To Do list of actions for you. This list will contain only those actions that require immediate attention. The To Do list will be sorted in order of priority so that you can stay focused on what is really important to you.

One of the key advantages of MyLife is that despite being a very powerful and sophisticated piece of software it is extremely easy for even the most novice of computer users. It will not replace your Calendar, Outlook or Excel, but it will help you to organize your tasks and generate concrete and sequential list of specific actions to achieve your goals as quickly as possible.

What Stood Out Immediately

 Nothing pretty

The first thing to stand out was the lack of visual appeal. MLO has most certainly been developed with functionality in mind. Personally, having used hundreds of different computer applications, I find that a visually appealing interface somehow makes a world of difference. I’m not alone in that regard either. Why is Apple Mac so appealing  to creative and artistic people (and so often copied by other computer and OS manufacturers? The hardware and the OS look, well, sleek and sexy. What’s the major change for general users from Windows 95 to XP to Vista? The looks, the gloss, the techno glamour — the resemblance to the Apple Mac OS. MyLife Organized has much room for improvement in this area.

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Comprehensive Time Management Features

Where MLO loses out in gloss, it most certainly makes up for it in functionality. It knocks the socks off EssentialPIM in this regard, except in one particular area. As mentioned in the EssentialPIM review, one of its stand-out features is the daily overview (called EPIM Today). Sadly MLO is lacking this.

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MLO has a comprehensive set of data sets for each task, such as:

  • The ability to distinguish between Projects and tasks within a project
  • An advanced locations system. You can set up an unlimited list of locations, specify when certain locations are available (i.e. the office might be somewhere you only go to from 9 to 5), and specific locations within locations. For example, you can set up the phone as a location, and then put phone within office and home. What this means is that MLO will know you are able to perform the task with phone as its location when you are at home and when you are at work. You can sort by location, so when you’re at work it will show you all the things you’re actually able to achieve at that location, and not the stuff you intend to do at the hardware store or hairdresser.

Super Prioritization System

Simply put, MyLife Organized has an amazing prioritization system. They call it Computer-Score Priority. In their words:

Computed-Score Priority mode uses the details you supply about each task to compute an individual score for each task in your outline. These scores are then used to provide a priority-ordered To-Do List. The two factors that contribute to each task’s score are its Importance and its Urgency (and also the Time you set for that task).

How much effect the start and due date will have on the overall urgency of the task can be configured in the MLO preferences. The preferences allow you to set the start and due date weighting factors individually. The higher you set the weights, the more influence the dates will have on the list ordering

 Task-List

In addition to the stand-out task features mentioned above, each task has the following data associated with it:

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Everything that one might expect, along with an Effort meter, which is something a bit different.

Task / Project Overview

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Again, nothing pretty, yet the Task / Project overview comes with some nifty features. MLO drills down by Place and also by how much time you have (optional). So if your at the office and you have 45 minutes up your sleeve, you might get a view like the one above (using the demo data).

Compared to EssentialPIM the unique feature in MLO is this how much time I have filter. EssentialPIM lets you search by location, but i does not have the Effort Meter found in MLO, so it can’t filter by this factor. I guess for some users this might come in rather handy. I’ve got 20 minutes, I’m at home, what can I complete in that time?

 Remember, the Computer Score Priority system (if activated) means the MLO will sort your Task / Project List according to priority which it automatically calculates for you. This makes it really easy to see exactly what requires your attention right now despite how seemingly urgent or important various other tasks (or a lower priority) are.

Daily Overview

MyLife Organized does not have a daily overview in the way that EssentialPIM does. I really wish it did. In my opinion this is the one thing that makes EssentialPIM stand out because it looks so darn useful to be able to just see a clear (and printable) schedule of that day.

Import / Export

Something a little different here is that MyLife Organized can import and export MindManager format. MindManager is a fantastic application I use a lot. Nice one. Check it out at Mindjet.

Exporting:

At the moment, MyLife Organized can export to the following formats:

  1. MyLife Organized XML document (*.xml)
  2. MyLife Organized template (*.mlt)
  3. Text tab delimited document (*.tab)
  4. Excel XML document (*.xml)
  5. MindManager XML document (*.xml)

When exporting, you are given a choice to export only the selected branch (task with all subtasks), or the entire outline.

Importing:

MyLife Organized imports all the formats listed above, except Excel XML.

When importing, you are given a choice to import to the selected task or to the root of the outline.

Synchronizing

MyLife Organized can sync with Outlook, Palm, and the Pocket PC version of MyLife Organized. Oddly, there only option in the File menu for synchronizing is related to Outlook, so I am going off the help file when I say it will support these other methods.

Getting Things Done

For those people familiar with David Allen’s Getting Things Done book and philosophy, MyLife Organized has some appealing trump cards. MLO has a template based system for starting new databases. Built in are four Getting Things Done templates. From the basic GTD organization system through to a life focus area template. I can see that MyLife Organized would certainly make working with the Getting Things Done time management system quick and easy. There is also quite a bit of information on the internet exploring how to make the most of using MLO for the Getting Things Done system.

Concluding thoughts

If you want your Time Management software to do some of the thinking in terms of what you do when then MyLife Organized would be the way to go. Its computer based priority scoring and the effort meter give it a distinct advantage in this area. 

If you want to handle the prioritization part of your Time Management yourself, and you want to have a nice daily overview of things to do each day, then you might prefer EssentialPIM. Many people find it really hard to prioritize their to-do list and I believe this is the issue MLO is very specifically trying to address.

EssentialPIM Pro Review

Published on July 12, 2007 in Time Management Tools. 1 Comment

In this series of articles we’ll taking a look at a number of time management / personal organizer applications. The first is EssentialPIM Pro.

What Stood Out Immediately

Daily Schedule

The one thing that stood out most as soon as I took a look at this application was the way it generates a daily schedule. There is a view called EPIM Today which looks like this:

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From this view it is very easy to see exactly what I intend to be doing that day. If going away from the computer this schedule can be printed out and taking with you like a diary page:

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Interactive Calendar

Another feature that made this EPIM stand out was the calendar like schedule view where one can view by day, week, month, and year. This is an interactive calendar much like that one in Microsoft Outlook, meaning you are able to select times and days and insert tasks and appointment directly into the calendar. They will then end up on the master task list accordingly.

Mass Mail

This feature would be of use to someone with an Internet related business. EssentialPIM allows you to send send template composed e-mail to multiple recipients from your Contacts database. The Contacts database within EPIM is quite substantial in terms of data fields. Each contact can have notes, pictures, and file attachments associated with it.

The Task List

The master task-list, or to-do list as it is called in EPIM, can be viewed as tree structure and flat table structure. I find the tree structure more useful as it allows me to see the relationship between tasks, and sub-tasks, or projects and the tasks that make up that project. Here is an example of the tree view in the to-do list:

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The data for each task is relatively limited in EssentialPIM, compared to MyLife Organized for instance. Here’s the task edit window:

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Importing Data

EPIM handles importing by data type with various formats, as follows:

  1. Schedule - Ical
  2. To-do - Ical
  3. Notes - RTF / Txt, Treepad, Keynote
  4. Contacts - Outlook Express, CSV, vCard

Exporting Data

EPIM also handles exporting by data type with various formats, as follows:

  1. Schedule - HTML, iPod
  2. To-do - HTML, iPod
  3. Notes - HTML, RTF, Text Files, iPod
  4. Contacts - Windows Address Book, Comma Separated Values (*.CSV, can be opened by MS Excel or Text Editor), HTML, Rich Text Format, Text Files

All data can be exported one-by one, or you can select multiple entries using CTRL + mouse (for contacts and Notes), or All entries can be exported. In most cases you can even select which fields to export. Most of the export data can be sent to an iPod. I don’t have an iPod so that’s all the info I can give on this.

Synchronizing Data

EssentialPIM is capable of synchronizing its data with Microsoft Outlook, Windows for Mobile devices and Palm OS devices.

Concluding Thoughts

 What I like most about EssentialPIM is the daily schedule. My next review is of MyLife Organized. It lacks this feature, whilst having numerous other useful features that EPIM does not have.

Windows Live Writer Error 400 with Wordpress

Published on July 9, 2007 in Wordpress Related. 1 Comment

The first issue I ran into with Windows Live Writer (v12.0.1183.516) is that it does not work with the plug-in Bad-behaviour. This plug-in is very useful on any WordPress blog, in my opinion. It prevents a vast amount of comment spam. BB and Spam-Karma eliminate ALL spam on all of my Wordpress blogs. Having said that, I do have one blog without BB and only Spam Karma. So far no spam in 4 months. So perhaps Bad-Behavior is not as crucial as I previously thought. If you don’t want to use Bad-Behavior on Wordpress and Windows Live Writer to post your entries, the following fix is necessary (until BB sorts things out with the plug-in)

So, the error is:
The server reported an error with the following URL:
http://e-volutiononline.com/blog/xmlrpc.php
The remote server returned an error: (400) Bad Request.

The fix is as follows:

  1. You’ll need to figure out what your IP address is. The one assigned to your Internet connection by your ISP. Either look it up in the status page of your router/adsl modem, or go to a page like http://whatismyip.com/
  2. Be aware that your ISP will have a large range of IP addresses it may assign to you, unless they provide customers with fixed IP addresses (not common). I suggest you email them and ask them to tell you the range they use. Also ask if they can provide it in the CIDR format. If they won’t provide it in CIDR form (will look like XXX.XXX.XXX.XXX/XX) then go to the CIDR Calculator
  3. Edit the following file in the Bad Behavior plugin folder
    /plugins/bad-behavior/bad-behavior/whitelist.inc.php
  4. You’ll find this code:
    $bb2_whitelist_ip_ranges = array(

        // Includes four examples of whitelisting by IP address and netblock.
        $bb2_whitelist_ip_ranges = array(
            “10.0.0.0/8″,
            “172.16.0.0/12″,
            “192.168.0.0/16″,
            ADD YOUR IP ADDRESS HERE USING SAME FORMATING (e.g. “58.28.130.0/16″,)
    //        “127.0.0.1″,
        );

  5. Save the whitelist. That should be all you need to do
  6. If your IP changes you will need to add the new address to the whitelist.

I have raised this issue with the coder fo Bad-Behavior. I await his reply.

Let me know if this helps.

Jonathan

From the latest live writer

Published on July 9, 2007 in Blogging. 0 Comments

So here’s my first post from the new Live Writer V1 (Beta) (12.0.1183.516)

Cosmetically it has been brushed up to fit in with Vista. I don’t use Vista so that’s nothing I am particularly interested in. But it does look nice. Of course, functionality is most important, then looks.

  • It has spell as you type. Nice
  • It has a “link glossary”. This allows you to set up link text that will be converted into a link
  • There are many great plugins to add various features. For instance, plug-ins to:
    • Insert video
    • Insert social bookmarks
    • Insert code
    • Insert formatted text
    • Insert non-formatted text
    • etc.
  • I am yet to find out it it will clear the current post after publishing, whilst leaving Live Writer open for writing the next post. I’ll know this in a moment

Missing features?

The main one, which I previously told MS about, is the ability to increase/decrease the font size with a button for each. This is much like the feature available in Word 2007. To change the font size and face in WLW we have to go to the FORMAT menu, the FONT, and change it in there.

This one issue aside, I still consider WLW to be the nicest blog editor around.

You can get it from http://get.live.com/betas/writer_betas

Latest Windows Live Writer update

Published on July 9, 2007 in Blogging, Internet Topics and Windows Software Tips. 0 Comments

There is a new version (at long last) of Windows Live Writer available. I’ve not tried it yet as I am just downloading it now. If you want to check it out go to http://writer.live.com/

As mentioned in a previous post, having tried nearly all of the various desktop blog editors available (paid and free) I considered Live Writer (the version I am typing in now) to be a close contender as the best one to use. Let’s put it this way, it’s currently the only one I bother to use. Hopefully the new version will fill out the various “missing features” I wanted. I’ll let you know.

Jonathan

The ultimate online application

Published on July 9, 2007 in Internet Topics. 0 Comments

The following is an outline of an Online Application I am 100% certain we’ll see available within the next 1-3 years. Let us say this is a look at the future of what is coming in the way of online applications. This, to me, is the next natural step.

I have forwarded this info to Google as a feature suggestion. Below is a copy of what I suggested to them. It was written very quickly in a small text box on their feedback page, so there may be typographical and gramatical errors, but I’ll leave it as it. (I’ll also leave in the first couple of non-relate features I suggested… just for the record)

Let me know if this is something you can envision using. Also, if there are additional features you would suggest.

To Google:

I’d like to suggest that Goodle make available a sync tool for Outlook (and Thunderbird — although perhaps there’s already one on Tbird).

There’s a plugin I use called GSynit which works well. Syncmycal also works well, but it’s $30. Gsyncit is $9.

What I would suggest is that Google put out its own FREE outlook plugin. There are a vast number of business outlook users out there, people who will not switch to Thunderbird for corporate reasons (I seem to recall Tbird has a sync plugin already?). I suspect many of these people would find Gcal far more attractive if it was a no-brainer to get Outlook and Gmail synchronising. If you don’t want to develop something from scratch, you could make the developer of GSynit an offer to buy his code.

Anyway, I really like GCal, but I must say I ONLY started using it once I was able to Sync with Outlook. Before that, I wouldn’t use it. And, as per some feedback I just sent, the free sms reminders is the #1 feature that made me want to use Gcal. That, and the fact that once I am on the road travelling (in a few months) I will quite likely use Gcal directly and skip the Outlook syncing because I can access Gcal from any internet cafe.

[THE FUTURE ONLINE APP]

Whilst writing the above, the following came to mind. I forward this to you because if it’s not something you’re already working on, I think it’s something Google should serious consider.

I’d suggest Google create is an online “time management system”. Google already has many of the core components of such a system in place. A basic to-do list would be a starter, although something more comprehensive would be more popular. No doubt Google is already working on the to-do list idea. Although, to be honest, basic to-do lists a somewhat a thing of the past.

Check out an application like “Mylife Organized” (google it!) and you’ll see what I mean. I am suggesting something that allows for setting up projects, sub-projects, and tasks within the projects. Also, take note that the book “Getting Things Done” by David Allen is very popular and again if you google that one you’ll see there are a lot of people looking at ways to apply the GTD principles with computers and task management programs. If you developed your task/project management system to be able to be set up as a GTD interface it would seen get out there.

Off the top of my head this would require the following feature sets:
1) The two already mentioned above. Projects, Sub-projects, and tasks (to-do lists) within these projects. Projects and tasks would have the option of assigning a data and time to them. Even a start and end date. Also reminders for the start and end.

2) An virtual “Inbox” tray — this is a dumping ground for ideas, thoughts, notes, bookmarks, sound files, documents, etc. Emails could also be moved into this. (It’s not an email inbox, rather an “everything inbox” to which emails could be sent if desired). I think your Google Notepad system would be the logical starting point for the “inbox”.

3) A good folder/filing system for the following items: Emails, notes (stuff from the “Inbox” mentioned in #2), documents, saved attachments, etc. It should be easy to send any item into these folders, from where ever they are normally stored (emails from Gmail, docs from Google Docs, etc.)

4) The ability to make any item something to be actioned. So, for instance, an email… I would be able to assign it to a project, and/or set up a task, and/or fire it through to my calendar as an appointment. Or things in the Time Management Inbox… again, I would be able to make them into tasks, appointments, etc. These action items would have a date and even a time assigned to them. A reminder would be available too.

5) Another great would be the ability to send items from my PC (and PDA) to an email address (a google one) which will place those items into the Time Management Inbox. So I could forward emails to it, forward images, forward documents, forward notes, forward voice recordings, etc.). Any attachment on this special email would be striped off the message and put into the Inbox.

6) The ability to manage much of this from the Desktop. Be that a ground-up desktop application or something that plugs into Outlook and Thunderbird (with the Sunbird calendar system installed). I think the later would require much less development overhead, and would suit the needs of anyone wanting a desktop interface for the above Google Time Management system.

—-
Some of the above mentioned is simply about tying together the systems Google has already developed (Notebooks, Gmail, Calendar, Google Docs). Some of it is about adding new feature sets to help tie it all together in useful ways and to provide the ability to organise the information in two ways: Projects/Tasks, and Time (dates, times, end times, reminders, finish times, etc.)

I’d greatly appreciate hearing back from someone regarding the above mentioned. These are quick notes off the top of my head, so if you’d like more input let me know.

Having worked professionally in the IT sector since I was 12 (20 years ago) and with a really good handle on people and what the social trends/wants are, I am entirely certain that if Google is not the one to come out with something like what I’ve just outlined, some one else will. I guarantee it. In my mind, Google might as well be the one to do it.

A name for the above?
Google Organizer
G-Time
G-Life
Google Life Planner (GLP for short)

Just some thoughts.

With my regards,

Jonathan Evatt

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